Tuesday, May 5, 2009

What are the advantages of naming organisms with scientific names as compared to common names?

It eliminates confusion when scientists communicate about organisms, or when people refer to organisms by local or regional names.


Latin names will not change meaning over time.


The names in Latin are descriptive of traits or range, so translating the name gives some indication of what the organism is like.


Each organism is delineated with a genus species that separates it from all other organisms, and yet shows relationships to its closest relatives.

What are the advantages of naming organisms with scientific names as compared to common names?
since latin is a dead language it'll never change..





for example:


rex means king, has more or less always meant king, and will always mean king.. as opposed to words such as gay, cool, corn, and ruler all either have multiple meanings and/or have changed meaning over time





also it eliminated language barriers





calling something a "six stripe wrasse" when it may very well be called six barred, six lined, etc wrasse it's simply refered to as Pseudochilineus hexitaenia (the lined wrasse of six.. as a rough translation)





or with common names such as the raccon butterfly.. it could be called a raccoon in the US (where there are raccoons) and be a bandit butterfly in australia
Reply:It gives them a structured naming system that can be easily encoded/decoded based on their meanings and word parts.

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